Authors Sue Google Over Digitization Project

It has been a very busy week for Google Print.

The Authors Guild, a group that represents thousands of American authors, filed a class action lawsuit against Google in which it asks for damages and an injunction aimed at preventing the company from continuing its ambitious digitization project which began around one year ago. The Guild accuses Google of massive copyright violation, claiming Google cannot make available books for commercial use without permission.

As part of the Google Print project, Google plans to scan all or parts of the book collections of the University of Michigan, Harvard University, Stanford University, the New York Public Library and Oxford University. Google would then make those texts searchable on Google and sell ads on the Web pages.

There has been a huge amount of material on the copyright controversy that has erupted.

Here is some of that material to help you find your way:

• Detailed coverage of the Authors Guild lawsuit from the Washington Post
• Official press release about the lawsuit from the Authors Guild
• Google’s position on the subject (along with many external links)
• Commentary and analysis on the Google Print project by intellectual property lawyer Jonathan Band. His big point is to remind people that "users will be able to browse the full text of public domain materials, but only a few sentences of text around the search term in books still covered by copyright. This is a critical fact that bears repeating: for books still under copyright users will be able to see only a few sentences on either side of the search term".
• Commentary from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, arguing that Google has a strong fair use defense
• Commentary from Lawrence Lessig who writes that "common sense [should] revolt at the claims of this law suit"
• Commentary by Business Week which puts the latest controversy in the context of a series of legal and political setbacks faced by the Internet giant
• Finally, commentary with a Canadian angle by University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist